Oh, just go ahead and celebrate your little ‘event’! Us Wiganers don’t need such a frivolous thing as British Pie Week to honour our town’s most iconic dish – this side of the River Dougie, *every* day is Pie Day. Yep, there’s Meat ‘n’ Tater Monday, Tikka Tuesday, Pea Whet Wednesday… need I continue? I’m…
Apparently, last Friday wasn’t the 13th of March… but you could have fooled me. When Mike Pollitt steered his SUV into a poorly-placed brick wall, he set in motion a chain of events that rippled through the Latics goalkeeping staff, and eventually the whole team. Tactical switches became difficult to acclimatise to, before you knew…
As I thrust apart my curtains on Friday morning, I was greeted with an unsettling sight: snow, and plenty of it. “Hopefully this isn’t an omen,” I gulped while hurriedly thumbing the 24-hour forecast for Robin Park. Little did I know that mere miles from my darkened doorstep, an even more sinister omen was about…
Give or take the odd leap day, it has been approximately one year since Uncle Dave tossed those precious club keys across the Champagne Lounge to grandson David Sharpe. “I’m off to Barbados for the next ten years. Look after ‘er, will ya,” he bellowed cheerfully, the last of his words becoming faint as he…
I can barely remember what happened last week, let alone a decade ago. But I recall vividly the events of January 2006, when Latics reached their first League Cup Final, squeaking past Arsenal over two legs. Aye – Neil Rimmer scored a first half hat trick in the first leg, while Ian Wright repeated that…
This week coming to you from the Beamback Enterprise AKA the South Stand lounge. A superb strike by the back of some guy’s head… or at least, that’s the way it looked from where I was stood. Why do the tallest guys always sit right at the front? Jussi Jaaskelainen passing a goal kick into…
We would like to wish goalkeeping coach Mike Pollitt a very Happy 11th Birthday for 29th February. Since such occasions only arrive every four years, it is an event to be celebrated… with a thumping 3-0 victory over the Farnworth Flyer’s former side. Oh, didn’t you know? Polly was benchwarmer for the Saddlers at the…
Melicitations, merry mentlegen! It’s Mid-Table March here at Meshuga Mel’s League One Discount Motors, and do we have the delightfully demented deals for you. [Theme from mid-90s UK TV game show ‘Trivial Pursuit with Tony Slattery’ begins to play.] Can I interest you in this sturdy 1985 Nissan Peterborough? Ah, maybe this weekend, you say?…
“Goals for: 3. Goals against: 8. Points won: 1. Cups ripped from our snotty grasp: 2.” Thus spake Latics’ resident statman, a look of mild disgust steadily encroaching upon his otherwise gentle features. 4-0 malletings in the Ben Watson Memorial Trophy can transform the most optimistic of supporters into miserable mopers in the short space…
Oooh, don’t they grow up so fast? One month they’re turning out against Wigan Athletic in the FA Youth Cup, the next they’re facing Chelsea’s first team in the actual FA Ben Watson Memorial Cup. On BBC HD TV at prime time Sunday afternoon, no less. Without wanting to take undue credit, I like to…
We shouldn’t really talk about the FA Cup, seeing as Wigan are no longer part of this year’s competition. But I can’t resist – the nostalgic lure of summer 2013 looms large in my nostrils like the fragrant aroma of fresh pigeon droppings. Hey, it reminds me of Haigh Hall, okay? Observers of Man City’s…
Football is an artform – of that, there is no doubt. But I would stop short of classifying it as a fine Renaissance triptych, Beethovenian symphony or even a Hurstian cow sliced clean in half. No, I like to think the sport is much more unconventional, edgy and mischievous – in that sense, it is…